(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel process for the preparation of tertiary butyl hydrazine (hereinafter referred to as "TBH"). More particularly, the present invention relates to a process comprising reacting a hydrazine salt of a hydrohalogenic acid (hereinafter referred to as "H.HX") with tertiary butanol (hereinafter referred to as "t-BuOH") in the presence of a hydrazine dihydrohalogenide (hereinafter referred to as "H.2HX") or a hydrogen halide (hereinafter referred to as "HX") to obtain a tertiary butyl hydrazine hydrohalogenide (hereinafter referred to as "TBH.HX") and, if desired, converting said compound to TBH.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
We previously proposed a process comprising reacting H.HX with a tertiary butyl halide (hereinafter referred to as "t-BuX") to obtain TBH.HX and forming TBH from TBH.HX (see the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 4,310,696). t-BuX is obtained from t-BuOH and HX. For example, tertiary butyl chloride (hereinafter referred to as "t-BuCl") is obtained from t-BuOH and concentrated hydrochloric acid, but in order to advance the reaction quantitatively, concentrated hydrochloric acid containing HCl in an amount at least 3 times as large as the stoichiometric amount should be used. If the HCl concentration is reduced, the reaction is not quantitatively advanced, and unreacted hydrochloric acid having a reduced concentration should be discarded after neutralization. This is a disadvantage involved in the preparation of t-BuCl, which is used in the conventional process for the preparation of TBH.